Nullius in Verba

Remember when I said that the Liberal Party’s Green Shift could raise emissions by 7.15 Mt? Well, the Liberals state Economist Jack Mintz, of CD Howe fame is 100% behind the Green Shift since he wrote part of it. But really is he? I’ll show you that from what he actually says he sounds quite dubious, and honestly I doubt his true comprehension of the very complicated work being done in the area of the double dividend. That being said, I do respect him as a renowned economist.

(The Green Shift Raises Emissions by 7.15 Mt [Click Image to Enlarge])

His words 2006:

However, the [carbon] tax approach may achieve little in the way of environmental objectives. The demand for such products as gasoline and heating fuel is less sensitive to price, since the tax also falls on necessary, almost essential, services such as heating and transportation. The carbon tax is also a highly inflexible tool since it cannot be easily adjusted for changing emission levels. Further, governments become reliant on the revenue and are less willing to adjust the tax rates downward when emissions decline. For these reasons, some experts have argued that regulations that limit emissions, including tradable permit regimes, can be more effective and more flexible.

And his words in the National Post 2008:

While the price for carbon is certain under the tax, the ability to achieve targets becomes uncertain as much depends on how households and businesses will respond to the tax. [I show you how households respond with my analysis here - langmann]

Personal tax reductions will provide some relief to all Canadians although the anti-poverty measures tend to support poorer provinces. The benefits of corporate reductions go primarily to Ontario (43%), followed by Alberta (22%) and Quebec (20%).

Where the Liberal proposal is weaker compared to the Conservative plan is that the latter is more directed at reducing carbon. The Liberals should have distributed more of the carbon tax proceeds to fund investment tax credits in new carbon-reducing technologies and less in anti-poverty measures. While it is appropriate to provide relief to low-income Canadians, the broadening of refundable income-tested tax credits could ultimately push up marginal tax rates on some low-income Canadians trying to get ahead. Thus, the Liberal plan is not as successful in improving competitiveness as it could be.

[comments in brackets and bold text is mine - langmann]

Jack Mintz does not sound as supportive of the Liberal Green Shift as the Liberals make him out to be. What I would like to note two things. In terms of the tax itself, Mintz does not seem to think the Green Shift would obtain the targets the Liberals need to obtain to meet the Kyoto Accord. Secondly Mintz seems to think that the Conservative plan is much more effective at the real goal of meeting the targets themselves.

Some criticisms of Mintz however. Number one is that he ignores the entire proposition of the double dividend (the idea that shifting taxes to dirty stuff and reducing taxes on income increases GNP and welfare). Instead he suggests funding industrial upgrades. The evidence from Europe behind the double dividend is not great and in my honest opinion inconclusive with some articles stating that the double dividend is real and others finding no effect. Mintz ignores the only evidence that suggests some benefit and throws the money at industrial upgrades of which no benefits are proven.

The other interesting aspect of the European carbon tax to note is that many industries are exempt from carbon the tax itself and hence still polluting as much as before, and secondly many of the Nordic countries have politically directed energy policies at alternative sources of energy production in the form of Nuclear Power and Hydro. I have not seen any great evidence yet that the carbon tax itself has reduced pollution in Europe, and I am still looking.

(When the Russians Came Only the Fool Was Worried as the Court, in Bliss, Danced)

I have created a graphic to demonstrate how the Green Shift raises CO2 emissions by 7.15 Mega tonnes. The economic evidence I used includes peer reviewed articles from economic journals. This is described in a post that attempts to make it easier for non-economists to understand. The Green Shift II. Stephane Dion likes to refer to the Nordic countries as a carbon tax success, but that is not entirely true as this Wall Street Journal article points out.

(Please read the previous Green Shift article first if you haven’t already)

How the Green Shift Causes More Greenhouse Gas Production and is Worse for the Environment

In the 16th Century St. Paul’s Cathedral garnered the displeasure of much of London’s population, protesting against the control of religion and human rights by a foreign power in Rome, the cathedral was pillaged and nearly destroyed. God Himself made His feelings known when He joined with the mob, and destroyed the tower with a lightening bolt, the awesome display quickly sobering all sides in the debate.

During this time and afterwards, the well protected St. Peter’s also known as Westminster Abbey, had remained untouched, and money donated to that cathedral was siphoned off to pay for the maintenance of St. Paul’s, of which we have just stated caused much unrest and finally resulted in catastrophe.

It is from this situation the old English idiom “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul” came into use.*

The problem, as many have found out the hard way, is that quite often both Peter and Paul lose out when the unintended consequences of the enlighted action lead many and money astray. 

(Stephane Dion Could Not Convert Canadians As Only the “One” Converts St Paul on the Road to Damascus)

As I indicated in the previous article on the Green Shift, an unintended consequence of the shifting may actually result in more production of the supposed greenhouse gasses by consumers. In essence this has to do with the price elasticity of demand as well as the income elasticity of demand. These are influenced by the unfortunate fact that there are no real substitute goods for gasoline or many fossil fuels for that matter, as well as the fact that these substances are involved in almost every human endeavor.

To define it simply, the economic definition of elasticity is the ratio of the percent change in one variable to the percent change in another. The price elasticity of demand is therefore the percent change in quantity demanded divided by the percent change in price. Gasoline is a very inelastic good, meaning that changes in the price of gasoline will have very small effects on the quantity demanded.

In simple terms, the price elasticity of demand defines the percent people will decrease their consumption of a good if the price is increased. The income elasticity of demand is the percent people will increase their consumption of a good if you increase their income.

Alright so lets start with a very basic example. On a simple microeconomic scale, if Peter is spending 100 dollars on fossil fuels and the government taxes it by 20 more dollars, he will reduce his consumption of gasoline by the price elasticity of demand. In layman’s terms he will cut his use of gasoline by a certain amount based upon his budget. If the price elasticity of demand is inelastic because Peter cannot find another fuel source for his car, Peter may end up spending 118 dollars on gasoline with the government pocketing the 18 dollars and Peter reducing his quantity of gasoline by the small amount he can while sacrificing his spending on other more unnecessary things in his budget.

If the government then gives Peter back the 18 dollars it took then Peter may use the extra income to spend some of that money on gasoline depending on his income elasticity of demand. In layman’s terms as his income increases he will spend more of his budget on gasoline for example by making that extra trip to the video store, or out to dinner etc. More than likely he will use the extra money to buy some of the unecessary goods he gave up before the price increase once he has satisfied his gasoline requirements.

Think of what you would do in this simple situation, if you were only buying the amount of gas you absolutely needed before the tax, and then after the tax you got your money back. You will more than likely try and be back where you started. This is why on a micro-economic level, I think the Green Shift is flawed when it comes to greenhouse gas reduction. Soon I will show you the numbers, or the money as they say.

But what happens if the government gives you more money than you started with? This is the situation where you might actually end up buying more greenhouse gas producing products than you ever did before, and also where you might indirectly switch from using friendlier natural gas to deadlier gasoline. 

The problem is that the consumption taxes and income taxes are not directly linked.

Let’s set this up. The Green Shift proposes the impossible, that it will only target non-gasoline fuels for taxation. According to Natural Resources Canada data, residential natural gas contributes to 32.2 Mt of CO2 per year. It is a large segment of of the total residential production of CO2, on par with electricity. Oil is minor with only a 6.8 Mt contribution and will be ignored in this simple estimate. The estimated long run price elasticity of demand of natural gas is -0.36 according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The Green Shift will increase the price of natural gas by ~18.0% at the end of four years. Therefore the reduction in CO2 production is calculated to be 2.09 Mt (18.0%*(-0.36)/100*32.2 Mt).

According to the Green Shift somehow the majority of Canadians are going to get more money back due to income tax reductions. You only have to go to their website to see that somehow you are coming out ahead after playing with their calculator. (The plan implies the wealthy will not but in actual fact it will likely be the poor who suffer most.) Government projections have the revenue from National Personal Income Taxes in four years at roughly 143.375 billion dollars. Increased personal income due to Green Shift, 7.54%**. The income elasticity of demand for gasoline has been calculated to be on average to be 0.88 from a meta analysis by Espey. Natural Resources Canada has greenhouse gas emissions at 89.4 Mt CO2 for gasoline transportation. The increase in CO2 use from the increased income spent on gasoline is 5.93 Mt.  

Income elasticity of demand will also effect the consumption of natural gas. Income elasticities of demand differ between countries widely, and are greater in Europe. Ashe et al. in the Energy Journal show a 1.3 to 6.1 income elasticity of demand for natural gas in the long run between Europeans. I will use a more conservative number calculated by David Brightwell at Texas A.M. of 1.46 as it is likely an underestimate of Canadian elasticity. The increased consumption of natural gas due to increased income is 3.31 Mt ((32.2 - 2.09))*(0.0754*1.46)).

The Green Shift alone results in an increase in CO2 greenhouse gas production by consumers of 7.15 Mt (5.93 + 3.31 - 2.09 Mt).

Limitations to this analysis include the cross price elasticity of coal, oil, natural gas, and gasoline. In simple terms by making one more expensive relative to another there may be a consumer switch to the cheaper fuel. As has been shown by many authors substitution effect between any two is very small if not insignificant, except for the substitution between natural gas and oil, and natural gas and gasoline for some reason. Either way, the cross price elasticity would make the increase in CO2 production from the Green Shift larger if at all. Another obvious limitation is the increase in over-all fossil fuel use due to increasing incomes as GDP rises over the next four years. This would change the numbers somewhat, but more important to note, would increase fossil fuel use overall and greenhouse gas production. It is also important to consider the linearities, in this case the differences in elasticities faced by people with different incomes. People in the low income bracket tend to have a more inelastic price elasticity for necessities and a higher income elasticity. This is due to the fact that the richer you get the less likely you are to spend any more money on gasoline. In essence you reach a point where you are using as much gasoline as you like. Therefore while I have used average elasticities, it is likely that my number is an underestimate as most of the apparent Green Shift income transfers are to the low income bracket who are more likely to buy more fossil fuels than the middle income bracket.

A note to those in British Columbia who face a gasoline tax based carbon tax. It is likely that due to the income elasticity of demand you will also see an increase in greenhouse gas production.  

A Shocking Mystery

There exists a mystery in regards to the Green Shift. No where in the pdf can I find any mention of household increased electricity costs due to their increased tax on coal. Coal plants produce a large share of electricity in North America. Obviously electricity contributes a significant household cost. Considering that with the income tax decrease most Canadians are barely ahead adding the increased cost of electicity would certainly put most Canadians into the red.

Why do Economists Like the Green Shift?

Economists do not necessarily like the Green Shift. Many economists favor a change in our tax strucure from income taxes to consumption taxes. I agree with this but have some reservations, one of which is that the change has not been well studied with real occurances. Basically the theory is that by reducing our focus on income taxes, taxes that cause a negative strain on productivity and employment, we will increase GDP. Moreover by taxing pollution we will account for the negative externalities caused by consumption and increase GDP. This is called the double divident effect. The argument out there is whether this effect is real, weak or strong.

An economist who I respect, Dr. Ross McKitrick, has calculated the GNP rise due to the double dividend in Canada to be positive, (0.6%) with a 21 dollar (1989) per tonne CO2 tax. I don’t know whether he factors in the income elasticities into his reduction of CO2 model or whether he simply accepts a reduction. 

It is also important to note other studies such as by Carraro et al. that show that in the short run the double dividend effect can increase employment, but in the long run has no effect. Dr. Stephen Smith presents a review of the possibilities of the double dividend and its possible negatives and concerns.

Some of my concerns regard the implications of a shift from capital to labor in an open market. If labor is made cheaper relative to capital it may occur that the productivity of labor relative to other countries decreases. Essentially this is due to the disincentives to reinvest in productivity. As productivity falls, so does wages and Canadians may become poorer relative to other countries. Other concerns regard to the increased costs of energy and it’s obvious effects on production, manufacturing, industry, and even the service sector. Fossil fuels are an integral input in almost any good or service.

Many of the people who advocate a Green Shift use Finland and Sweden as an example of success. Fortunately for the Fins and Swedes, they have alternatives or substitutes in the form of nuclear power and hydroelectricity respectively. Finland is expanding its reliance on nuclear power and Sweden has placed its reduction on reliance on nuclear power on hold as they have come to realize the the difficulties of renewable energy. Sweden has 44% of electricity  produced by hydro and 47% by nuclear energy, total 91%. In comparison Canada has 24% of it’s electricity generated by CO2 producing sources, and this doesn’t appear to be changing as provincial governments have no real policies for energy production.

Mt = mega tonnes 

* It is likely that the idiom “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul” has been in the vernacular for much longer, and may indeed hark to the 12th century latin vernacular. However the event must have well suited the expression for those aware and cynical enough to turn it to English.

** It is hard to know, reading the Liberal Green Shift plan, which year the dollars are adjusted for due to inflation. I am assuming 2008 dollars. I hope they thought of inflation.

The English language is one of connotation, and some words like “stupid” should be applied carefully, but when warranted, applied definitively. What Dan Gardner tries to imply in this recent article is that Stephen Harper is stupid, even though he has a degree in Economics, by flogging him with an interview with the renouned Economist, Dr. Greg Mankiw.

Stupid is defined by Websters as acting in an unintelligent or careless manner, or lacking intelligence or reason.

As the old adage suggests, “While leaving the house to call someone stupid, be sure you don’t bang your head into a mirror along the way.”

The MSM is as Stupid as it is Vain

I’m sure no one in this country has missed out on the Liberal Party’s proposed carbon tax, the Green Shift™. While Stephane Dion has been unable to even pronounce it in English, let alone explain it, the mainstream media has done a bang on job of praising this thing whenever or however it can. Still I have yet to hear on the news a basic Economics discussion of the subject, and I have yet to hear from any published peer reviewed literature as well. So when the mainstream media fails us, like it usually does it is time to turn to the blogosphere. And so we being The Green Shift - The Economics Lesson - in Basic for Dan Gardner™. Oh and we’ll include some peer reviewed journal articles as well.

The basic principle of the Green Shift is that by increasing a tax one artificially increases the cost of carbon producing substances or greenhouse gas substances (GGS) so that people consider purchasing substitute goods instead thus lowering the release of greenhouse gasses. Moreover by reducing people’s income taxes by replacing it with the increased tax revenue from GGS one avoids harming people along the way, or causing the much dreaded stagflation. It is worth pausing here, for those of you unfamiliar with economics, in order to read the wikipedia definition of stagflation and note in particular that :

First, stagflation can result when an economy is slowed by an unfavorable supply shock, such as an increase in the price of oil in an oil importing country, which tends to raise prices at the same time that it slows the economy by making production less profitable.^[5][6][7] This type of stagflation presents a policy dilemma because most actions to assist with fighting inflation worsen economic stagnation and vice versa. Second, both stagnation and inflation can result from inappropriate macroeconomic policies. For example, central banks can cause inflation by permitting excessive growth of the money supply,^[8] and the government can cause stagnation by excessive regulation of goods markets and labor markets.

Yep.

Anyway so let us set up a basic economics argument for the Green part of the plan as follows. Here is a supply and demand curve with price (P) increasing to (P’) as we increase or shift the cost or supply curve (S) of gasoline by adding a tax (S’). As you will see the quantity of gasoline demanded decreases from (Q) to (Q’) and the ticker tape ticks, the adding machines add, and all is well in economic pre Christmas land. (D is the demand for gasoline curve)

Ok now let us add the “Shift” into the plan. We’ll give back Canadians this extra revenue in the form of an income tax reduction. So without going into a lot of detail, suffice to state that when one increases the income of a group of people one also shifts up the aggregate demand curve. This is generally because as one has more money in one’s budget one is less constrained by costs. In other words, if we all get an extra $2000 a year in income tax rebates, some of us are going to drive to New York for the weekend like we always wanted to do.

Let’s see the curves shifting.

Whoops! As the demand curve shifts up from (D) to (D’) the quantity of gas consumed increases from (Q’) to (Q). We’re right back where we started! What we have done is simply artificially raised the price of things, but not done a thing to reduce consumption of gasoline or GGS for that matter.

What’s worse is that one has no real idea how these supply and demand curves are going to shift. They could in fact shift in a worse direction than one intended. For example as seen in this graph one could seen the consumption of GGS increase to (Q”) instead. More GGS consumed than before one played God-onomics.

The question comes down to the shape of the real demand curve for GGS. If the demand curve is “inelastic” it is a vertical curve, and this would mean no matter how much you increased the tax, the quantity consumed of GGS will not change as seen below.

Inelastic demand curves are seen when a good has no substitute goods, that is no readily available good with the same function that you can purchase in it’s place. Gasoline is a likely inelastic good as there really is no substitute for your Honda Civic you just bought. It cost $20,000, and unless you are Bill Gates, replacing it with a fusion powered vehicle isn’t going to happen anytime in the near future. Also as North American electricity generation is primarily from GGS, changing to non GGS generation will be a costly step with no immediate realistic substitutes other than Nuclear and Hydro power.

So what does the scientific peer reviewed literature demonstrate in regards to the elasticity of gasoline, the number one GGS? Hughes et. al state that:

We find the short run price elasticity of gasoline demand is significantly more inelastic today than in previous decades.

and

consumers have not significantly altered their gasoline consumption in response to higher gasoline prices.

interestingly

at lower income levels, the amount of travel has already been reduced to the minimum leaving little room for adjustment to higher prices.

In other words the evidence suggests that we’re pretty much locked into buying the gas we need. West et. al suggest that the cross-price elasticity between gasoline and leisure (the optimal tax rate on gasoline without causing external damage) is 35%. This happens to be the current tax rate on gasoline in Canada in most cities already, therefore taxing it more will cause significant burden.

And just how effective is the tax on gasoline at reducing air pollution? Sipes and Mendelsohn demonstrate that:

Our results indicate that if an environmental surcharge is added to gasoline taxes, then the additional tax will decrease gasoline consumption only slightly and, therefore, will have little effect on air pollution.

and more drastically

The results suggest that people with twice the income buy only 10–20% more gasoline. Of course, governments could use the revenues from gas taxes to address equity issues by lowering taxes on poor people or subsidizing services for them. However, in practice, it is not clear that current subsidies for transport actually benefit poor people more than others. Even if the income elasticity estimates in this paper are low, a tax on gasoline would most likely fall most heavily on the poor.

When it is all said and done, the people likely to suffer from the Green Shift are the poor themselves.

Dr. Mankiw is a proponent of the Pigovian Tax, that is a tax on things like GGS which have externalities such as pollution which are proposed to not be included in the price of the good itself. Dan Gardner seems to think that externalities are simply basic economics. They are not. In fact the theory of externalities is extremely complicated, and made more complicated by the question of whether externalities really exist.

At the end of the day, Stephen Harper has to decide a course to take. He doesn’t have the luxury of sitting in an Ivory Tower playing tiddly winks or black board what if’s. We have this Green Shift theory which sounds interesting, but what we don’t have at our finger-tips is the shapes of those curves I drew above. We also don’t really know how much they will shift and where they will equilibriate. The only way to know for sure is to experiment, and the most prudent way would be to experiment slowly, because we really have no idea how things will change - contrary to the apparent thoughts of Dion who thinks we need to act fast to save the planet.

Stephane Dion Uses Sign Language to Describe His Knowledge of Economics

We could easily make greenhouse gas output worse, we could have no effect at all. We could cause a depression, we could cause the worst outcome possible: stagflation. Many of the Canadian banks suggest that Canada is on the brink of a recession, recessions tend to mostly harm the poor, and the journal articles suggest the poor will bear the brunt of a Green Shift.

Therefore seems it would be stupid, Dan, to manipulate the Canadian economy so drastically at this time, that is when one considers the peer reviewed Economic evidence.

(Update: Read part II of the Green Shift)

* The Green Shift plan has no immediate consumer gasoline taxes. However if the plan is to actually reduce GGS it will have to target gasoline in some manner. Gasoline is the number one and major contributor to Canadian GGS. For now they will target producers, who will have to pass some of these taxes onto the consumer, some will be taken out of profits, and some will be taken from the employees of the firms. Once again there are graphs to explain all that, of which we have no idea the slopes etc. In the end gasoline prices will rise, anyone who thinks they won’t is selling you a bridge to nowheresville. 

** It is likely that the effect of Anthropogenic Global Warming caused by GGS on global climate change is low or non-existant as no definitive proof exists, and many peer reviewed articles state there is no evidence.  Moreover it is likely that the current land based data is corrupt.

*** While many economists including myself support a pure consumption tax rather than income tax, all taxes do have harmful effects on the economy and the poor specifically. Consumption taxes have their own side effects and have not been entirely studied.

The reader will benefit from reading the blog article previous to this one.

Drs. David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson and S. Fred Singer have published an article in the International Journal of Climatology in which they explain that serious discrepencies exist between the computer models of climate change and the 25 year data from satellites and weather balloons.

Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer are the world’s experts on satellite data and Christy is a United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) editor. Ironically Christy and Spencer also have serious problems with the IPCC report, claiming it is a politically biased publication and misrepresents a lot of the science, reasons for why Christy left the IPCC process recently. (Christy and Spencer however, do think the evidence suggests CO2 can cause local climate change.) 

Why am I not surprised? As I have said before, having created computer models myself, you have to be concerned with the raw data used and more specifically the assumptions you make. Garbage in can easily equal garbage out. Sometimes even good data in can equal garbage out if your assumptions are wrong. As I have mentioned before at this time the surface station data is suspect.

From the publication:

On the whole, the evidence indicates that model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent with observations that indicate that, since 1979, there is no significant long-term amplification factor relative to the surface. If these results continue to be supported, then future projections of temperature change, as depicted in the present suite of climate models, are likely too high.

In summary, the debate in this field revolves around the idea of discrepancy in surface and tropospheric trends in the tropics where vertical convection dominates heat transfer. Models are very consistent, as this article demonstrates, in showing a significant difference between surface and tropospheric trends, with tropospheric temperature trends warming faster than the surface. What is new in this article is the determination of a very robust estimate of the magnitude of the model trends at each atmospheric layer. These are compared with several equally robust updated estimates of trends from observations which disagree with trends from the models.

The last 25 years constitute a period of more complete and accurate observations and more realistic modeling efforts. Yet the models are seen to disagree with the observations. We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these models be viewed with much caution.

(Bold faced emphasis is mine.)

Scientists recommending caution, imagine that? But that is what real scientists do. Just like real doctors are cautious about making promises to patients. That’s how I was trained.

Politicians and fake scientists, on the other hand, like Al Gore and the Suzuki make all kinds of hot air promises.

Which reminds me of the ancient Babylonian inscription:

Psychics who make predictions that are found incorrect shall have their heads seized from their bodies and placed upon the southeast gate.*

(How long did it take for the politicians to screw up this earthly delight created by ancient scientists?)

* The one about doctors who fail to save their patients sucks just as bad.

Update:

From the comments:

Models aren’t perfect, but they are our best means to predict the consequences of increasing GHG in the atmosphere. 

- Grant

You mean you trust this data, Grant?:

(Official NOAA Suface Station Sensor, Livermore California)

Update: Guess who was right, Danny and the media or the economist and me? And notice how the media ignores the whole issue when Harper looks like he’s right again. 

Now back to our regular programming:

Watching the recent frenzy over the Climate Conference in Bali I am very happy that we finally have a Prime Minister who is able to blow the cold air of reality into the environmental maelstrom of something that looks like a big-hot-back-slapping doldrum. Canada’s position, Japan’s, (and Australia’s, no thanks to the brainwashing organization, CBC, everyone thinks that the position in Oz has changed because of the new Labour government, but really it hasn’t) and the position of the United States is that there is no point in setting restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) when the world’s largest emittor won’t join in, and I refer to China. India’s emissions are projected to overtake the United States as well. The emissions from the US are going down each year under GW Bush, and not due to a recession either as the United States economy is better than ever, while Chinese emissions are increasing rapidly. If you’re one of those people who believes that anthropogenic GHG emissions (AGHG) is causing a disaster then by AlGlorey, why aren’t you concerned? It’s not going to matter one iota how much Canada does or even the United States for that matter, when the fat kids on the teeter-totter are all sitting on one end. Why isn’t this a bigger concern?

It’s comparable to a disarmament treaty during the Cold War that restricts the United States from building missiles but mandates the Soviet Union to build even more.

But does the media care? They’d rather follow the likes of Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. After all, it should concern us greatly when the dogs of Hollywood fly in on Lear Jets led by Al-Goreacle, and start yapping that perhaps things are getting blown way out of proportion.

Recently a new journal article* published in 2007 by a Canadian climate researcher and external IPCC reviewer, Dr. Ross McKitrik, in the Journal of Geophysical Research has demonstrated that the increase in surface temperature is in large part due to non-GHG anthropogenic reasons, ie: urbanization - in layman’s terms our cities are warm and temperature stations near cities are recording that. Moreover the methodology used by current science to screen out this background effect isn’t doing an effective job. His work reveals that the increase in temperature is half of that which the current United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is estimating, thereby reducing their estimates even lower than their own reduction in estimates from the latest report. 

A group of Dutch scientists have independently confirmed McKitrik’s work. Dr. Jos DeLaat and Dr. A.N. Maurellis at the Royal Netherlands Meterological Institute and National Institute for Space Research Netherlands respectively showed something very interesting indeed in two recent papers. Their latest in the International Journal of Climatology, 2006, states:

Our analysis of climate model simulations of GHG warming confirms our earlier results, namely, that they do not show any kind of CO2 emission–temperature trend correlation. In fact, the modeled temperature trends are quite insensitive to the magnitude of the industrial CO2 emissions. It is possible that the response of the climate system to enhanced GHG radiative forcing is much more localized than expected in that it occurs only in specific regions and mainly in the lower troposphere, although this runs contrary to the current understanding of GHG-related processes (cf Hansen et al., 1997; IPCC, 2001; Hansen et al., 2005; Santer et al., 2005).

This confirms an earlier work of theirs in 2004 that points out that surface stations situated in regions of low economic output show relatively little change in mean surface temperatures compared to surface stations in areas of high economic output as seen in this graph:

(star = high CO2 area, cross = low CO2 area)

In other words, AGHG is not causing global climate change, only a local effect is seen.

Although the exact mechanisms have yet to be determined our findings show that a significant part of the observed surface warming is related to processes other than enhanced greenhouse warming.

Its interesting to see other scientists dispute the current mainstream thinking just for the sake of a challenge. Stephen McIntyre just cannot leave the Dr. Michael Mann et. al. famous hockey stick graph alone, and for good reason. With its projection heavily weighted by the Graybill tree ring data, McIntyre spends some time in the same Sheep Mountain woods doing core sampling to update the data and demonstrates that according to the forest, the planet has been getting colder lately.

And this brings me to my main point. I’m really concerned when science gets manipulated by politicians. Take for instance hurricane researcher and IPCC member Dr. Chris Landsea who points that fact out as he resigns from the IPCC. There is also no doubt that certain countries eye Kyoto as the holy grail of economic subsidies, a diversion of money to their coffers. It is now currently the world’s largest welfare scam. Kyoto has not much to do with saving the planet from AGHG because it’s reductions are meaningless. Kyoto is all about transplanting more factories to China and India.

(In 1614 Galileo challenged mainstream thinking about the sun revolving around the earth leading to an Inquisition where he was soundly chastized)

It disturbs me as a scientist to see things get so manipulated by certain people with certain agendas. Like for instance what happened with Dr. Paul Reiter, a leading expert on malaria and other diseases carried by the mosquito vector. His testamony in front of the British House of Parliament reveals how the lead writers of the IPCC report on the Impact on Human Health are chosen. It is worth reading the whole thing. After not being chosen as a lead author in IPCC 4, largely due to his suspicion that he is not alarmist enough because he states the research doesn’t support an increase in malaria due to Global Warming, he retorts that the people chosen are basically laymen with agendas chosen by politicians:

34.   I replied with a question about the two Lead Authors that had been selected: “It is often stated that the IPCC represents the worlds top scientists. I copy to you the bibliographies of (the two lead authors), as downloaded from MEDLINE. You will observe that (the first) has never written a single article, and (the second) has only authored five articles. Can these two really be considered “Lead authors” with experience, representative of the world’s top scientists and specialists in human health?”

  35.   I also pointed out that one Lead Author is a “hygienist”, the other is a specialist in fossil faeces, and both have been co-authors on publications by environmental activists.

Imagine that, the lead authors of part of a document that is due to set world policy and massive interference by governments at all levels was written by a group of people with no scientific publications at all. 

The list of climate scientists disillusioned with the political manipulation of the IPCC grows longer, however when they try and make their voices heard they are soundly run out of town. That’s partly the fierce nature of the whole argument which involves scientific blows from both sides, however this fight is now one sided because the media, the politicians, and the hollywood hound-dogs have chosen the side they like - the socialist side that says global warming is cause by us bad humans but we should feel sorry for China and let them emit GHG because they’re poor. So in essence lets do nothing but feel good about it. Modern Liberal policy in progress, something Jean Chretien who did nothing about Canada’s GHG emissions over the last 10 years would have been proud of.

* Note: McKitrik’s work is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, not industry.

Turns out more problems at the United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN) data are raising serious questions regarding the validity of climate change analysis and projections. The USHCN is the largest temperature database and collection system in the world. Much of the research involved in global climate change is based on the US data.

(Climate Stations)

These questions are being raised by a researcher called Anthony Watts who started looking at the changes in types of paint used on the stations. Watts can often be found on Stephen McIntyre’s site ClimateAudit. McIntyre is a mathematician well known for debunking the famous Hocky Stick graph published in Nature by Mann et al. and for pointing out the Y2K errors in the computer program analysis of the data consequently changing the hottest year in history from 1998 to 1934. The infamous Hockey Stick was analysed by a team of statisticians at the National Academy of Sciences (Wegman Report) and found to have serious problems yet it is often still referenced by people like Al Gore as evidence for climate change.

(False - more widespread high-resolution data are needed before more confident conclusions can be reached and that the uncertainties were the point of the article - Mann hockey stick author)

As Watts started to audit them for his research, he noticed serious problems with the stations themselves, serious problems regarding the actual quality of the stations.

He started a website and encouraged other people to go out and take pictures of the stations as well as perform a series of measurements on them based upon criteria on site quality designed by The Climate Reference Network (CRN) and used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) themselves. Some of the inappropriateness of the sites can only be described as disgusting.

(Top - a quality station vs Bottom - a poor quality station, note the difference in yearly temperature between sites)

Watts has now done some analysis on the 33% of the some thousand stations they have audited and the results are seriously alarming regarding the quality of the raw data. Based on his analysis presented at the CIRES meeting:

(Potential temperature errors based on site quality, 55% +2 degrees Celcius)

As a scientist this is the kind of thing that distresses us the most: poor primary data. If your initial data collection is poor than all the work later whether it is computer analysis or branching projects will be useless. There is nothing worse than this because it can mean years of work gone.

Another serious point is being raised here. If we are going to drastically alter the economies of the world, and cause more poverty in third world countries we’d better be correct about whether anthropogenic global warming is real. Economics is by and far the most important thing to a living human being, plain and simple. It can even affect his or her health.

Recently James Hansen released his computer code for the analysis of climate data after what I see as a serious breach of scientific ethics. For a long time he refused to release the code or answer questions regarding it. After any research is published in an academic journal it is fundamental that the data and methodology be available to other researchers for their interpretation. This is intinsic to the scientific method as all work requires the crucible of critism and is either weakened or made stronger by it. We’ll see what kind of criticism his code gets and whether it stands up to scrutiny.

(We eat from the tree of knowledge at our peril)

As one of my old friends who was a girl and a planet loving environmentalist can attest, I used to frustrate her completely by saying that: you use more energy and release more bad CO2 by going on a hike than you do driving to Costco. I don’t know if anyone of you out there is familiar with the counter-cultural musical Avenue Q, but I used to bug her about eco-culture like Trekkie-monster bugs Kate-monster about internet porn.

Oh the eco-movement is to make money,
oh the eco-movement is to make money,
grab your cheque and send it quick,
money, money, money!
(sing along)

I completely forgot about this until I was just reminded by strolling over to Small Dead Animals (Kate’s blog that can generate more hits than CTV and CBC). Yes one day completely bored at university back when I was saved from becoming a complete socialist quack by the beginning of the study of the glorious thing called economics, I stumbled upon all kinds of data in the SFU library and one of the databases had a bunch of energy use estimations in them. Being rather bored I calculated up some things and quickly realized that physical excercise was very bad for you, the environment, and every-one else, oh and that all the estimations of the lives we’d save by eating low fat foods, driving with seatbelts, stopping smoking etc. etc. would save more people in Canada from death than Canada actually currently had.

Forget what the Suzuki says about light bulbs, its time to stop eating:

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

Now those of you who think organic farming is better at saving the air from the hordes of bad CO2, think again:

Organic farming practices generate significantly greater CO₂ emissions while producing less than conventional agriculture. On the other hand, growing genetically modified crops allow the farmer to reduce CO₂ emissions while maintaining yields.

But any economist can tell you that increasing productivity of a good decreases waste. In this case it happens to be food. Farming practices we used in the days of Sumeria will not feed 6 billion humans without causing an environmental decimation folks.

Ahh, but don’t be too quick to join the ranks of the eco-green terrorists out there and start amusing yourselves to death by starting the campaign of culling a few million more people than the eco-socialists are already doing by mandating the third world back to the stone age. You’d better kill the termites first - they release and produce more Greenhouse Gas methane and CO2 than we all do, and there’s only billions and billions more of them every year.

(In Praise of Folly - Erasmus 1515. A satirical work that is considered one of the greatest influences on Western culture and philosphy. If you are interested in modern praises of folly just watch CTV and CBC follow Al Goreacle or the Suzuki around) 

As an aside, it turns out that the investigational work of several bloggers has revealed serious data errors in the NASA calculations of average temperature increases in the United States due to of all things, a Y2K computer error. The hottest year on record is now 1934 instead of 1998, and the recent years have fallen in significance compared to the 1930’s during the dustbowl famine.

(Which one of these things is not like the other, which one of these things is not the same… la la la)

It also appears that many of the environmental sampling stations are more often placed next to A/C units etc. which put out lots of heat increasing the temperatures measured at those stations - which are used to determine if global warming is real or not. A bunch of volunteers have been combing the country taking pictures of the data stations and logging them on the blog: SurfaceStations.org. The problem with peer review is that often it doesn’t replicate the experiments down to the data collection itself, hence faulty data in can lead to faulty data out in a peer reviewed article. Peer review is a good system but it isn’t perfect. (Note at the current time SurfaceStations.org and ClimateAudit are offline subject to Denial of Service attacks by neo-socialist hackers who don’t want the message getting out. And I remember when hackers used to strive for truth.)

There are some potentially valid reasons to buy a Prius or some other hybrid, but saving the world from the hordes of evil CO2 isn’t one of them. But hey, most of the educated people out there aren’t suprised.

Once again yet another group has come out with a study showing that the vaunted Prius uses more energy over it’s lifetime than the gas guzzling Hummer. CNW Marketing Research has produced a “dust to dust” study demonstrating that overall the Prius has an energy-cost average of $3.25 per lifetime mile vs. the Hummer with one of $1.95. Mostly the added environmental damage is from the production of the Prius’ batteries and transport of said product. The other thing that CNW noticed is that people aren’t using the Prius that long before it’s thrown out, hence a lot of fossil fuels has gone into the production of a vehicle that isn’t being well used.

(For those of you who think that the only good carbon is dead carbon, the only thing that will bog a Hummer down is taxes.)

Now, like any economist or other scientist, I can state this as a certainty because I’ve done computer modelling: almost any conclusion can be reached by the construction of a model. (Tell that to the global warming gang). All one has to do is make sure that one adds the variables that will in theory support one’s hypothesis and make up excuses why to leave out the variables that will not. The debate on whether the hybrid is an environmental benefit or boondoggle will rage on and on.

My real suspicion is that if the Hummer and Prius are fairly close on the environmental scale of damage, and one can argue back and forth on this, the fuel efficient and economical cars like the Corolla and Civic must be much better than a Prius.

(Update) Looking at more evidence I’m likely still better off buying the conventional car for quite a while. Lave and MacLean conclude that the benefit from the Prius over the Corolla is negligible especially when considering the costs of production. Lave’s previous work has agreed with he CNW that indeed the production of hybrids results in higher environmental stress than conventional cars, and indeed have only tiny effects on ozone production and yet have increased environmental effects due to battery materials.

Of course Al Goreacle and the Suzuki will continue to push the hybrid on us, regardless, but won’t actually use them to get to their big-expensive speaking engagements.

Anyhow why am I going on about some old news? It only took our friendly Globe and Mail writer Neil Reynolds about two lines to twist this story into yet another anti-Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) story where of course it’s all Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty, and probably George W Bush’s fault too if you look hard enough. (This is yet another one of those times where Dick “The Dick” Cheney may or may not be at fault, but let me remind you that the Laffer curve we discussed in this post earlier was his fault.) 

Now Neil Reynolds has a very interesting biography, been everything from an NDPer to a Libertarian, has run a variety of newspapers and is very vociferous on his outlook that small government, low taxes, and person freedom are the best way to go and on that I couldn’t agree more. However as he once said about working at the Toronto Star that he isn’t above going with the accepted way of things:

People know all newspapers have biases. Some people read us because they don’t agree with our bias. They get a provocative charge out of being told they’re wrong … I worked at the Toronto Star for eight years, and they were the biggest spinners of all. They had a written policy that ‘everything [Liberal finance minister] Walter Gordon does is front page news.’ I didn’t agree with Gordon, but I followed the policy anyways, with a clear conscience. Everyone knew it was a left-wing rag, and we called it PRAVDA, affectionately. But it was a great crusader, and the best-selling daily in the country.

And the way of things is CPC bashing. In his column he writes that Jim Flaherty was mistaken in giving tax breaks for fuel efficient cars and increased taxes on fuel guzzlers.

In his March budget, Mr. Flaherty made fuel efficiency - gas mileage alone - the sole basis for the environmental rating of new cars. He will reward high-mileage cars (with rebates from $1,000 to $2,000) and punish low-mileage cars (with surcharges from $1,000 to $4,000). The program could well be a phenomenal waste of energy. Junk it, Mr. Flaherty. It’s not fit for the road.

Now before all you socialist huggers out there get too excited and start waving placards about yet another frothing trashing of the CPC, lets not forget that Reynolds has a way of being facetious which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s on your side. In fact who really knows what he means, one of his previous suggestions has been to cut the GST on any new car since they are in general more fuel efficient. Probably because he reached the same conclusions I did.

However if there is one thing Reynolds admits to knowing is which way the bandwagon is headed and how to get on. So it’s likely his editors at the G&M were ecstatic with his implications regarding the CPC because the media will continue to lap up anything that windbags with no credibility like the Suzuki and Al Gore will say and yet neglect to do any real research of their own. 

For example, Stephane Dion can recycle some old wine glasses and to the media he’s the greenest guy since Kermit the Frog, yet Flaherty can implement some Suzuki Foundation suggestion and he’s the Genghis Khan of the Greenhouse Gas Horde.

Anyhow the real reason the Hybrid may be better for us all really has nothing to do with CO2. Instead it may, and this is a may, help reduce smog in cities that has been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in suseptible people as well as cancers. Even the evidence for this is still in some ways weak, but its out there and probably a lot more reliable and relevant than the media-hyped science on CO2. Yet can we get a peep out of them on this? When the CPC announced they were targeting smog as a health issue, the media was speechless. It was like watching an episode of the Simpsons when Homer is told the implications of something and he just blinks a couple times with a blank look on his face. Yet say the word Global Warming and they’ll lead the charge to Jerusalem.

(The War on Greenhouse Gasses is the New Crusade and Global Warming is the New Religion)

So if you’re going to drive a hybrid, it should be because you’re trying to save lil’ Johnny from yet another asthma episode and subsequently another visit to me. If you think you’re any better than the dude in the Hummer that just passed you, think again. You, my friend, are the one making the planet hotter.

Maybe.

Today’s Three points:

1) The fuel efficient cars are likely your best bet if you want to save the world.

2) No matter what the CPC does, according to the media it will always be wrong.

3) The Prius and other hybrids are a good idea in theory because they may reduce the harmful local effects of combustion engine emissions on lung and heart disease, not because they reduce CO2.

Remember when a bunch of rock musicians got together and solved third world poverty? (Most of the money was stolen by corrupt Ethiopian politicians, and there is good evidence some was used by thugs to forcefully oppress several hundred thousand people.) Heck, forget about free trade, capital markets, democracy, property rights, civil order, and global investment - lets just transfer a bunch of money to them and they’ll be all right.

After all subsidies have been working for the natives in North America, fishers in the Atlantic, car producers in Windsor, and forestry mills in BC for years. Right? Nope, this little economic truth called rent seeking means all that money has been flowing into the hands of thieves and lawyers for years.

Why the heck, me included, are people so willing to pay money to screw themselves?

(In Western culture, foolish gluttony is often represented by a continually growing Leviathan that is difficult to kill)

Real scientists ask questions, and are rarely willing to go on TV and make broad ranging statements. Scientists tend to be cautious and always re-evaluate the evidence.

Thats why when respected researchers like Roger A. Pielke, a climatologist with hundreds of papers in climate journals makes statements like:

In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO2 relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate climate forcing on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change.

Or William Gray, who said:

Gray acknowledges that we’ve had some warming the past 30 years. “I don’t question that,” he explains. “And humans might have caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle ’40s to the middle ’70s.”

And Richard Lindzen (an author of IPCC 1 who withdrew from what he calls quackery) and Chris Landsea (who withdrew from IPCC 4 because it was too politicized and not scientific) and so on.

I tend to believe these scientists over people with no credibility like David Suzuki or Al Goreacle. Now don’t get me wrong, Pielke, for example, believes in climate change on a local level due to anthropogenic effects and that is what his research is focused on. What he stresses is that we really don’t know what we are talking about on the global picture. I think he’s right on there.

(Watch this commercial and tell me why Suzuki isn’t telling people to shut off their wasteful outside lights, instead of recommending bulb changes. This just sums up their mentality - simply dumb)

The IPCC has been infiltrated by horrible politicos, bent on only one thing - transferring wealth. The real goal of Kyoto is to transfer money to third world countries in the form of imaginary CO2 credits. I mean even if we followed Kyoto to the nuttiest of its conclusions we’d only be reducing the increase in theoretical global warming by 0.2 degrees. Its like throwing a 2 cm piece of Black and Decker fridge ice into a volcano. It isn’t doing anything.

The reality is the IPCC conclusions are constantly being challenged. When some IPCC scientists that have signed the document have asked to have their names removed, and some have quit the organization altogether one should start to some raise flags of one’s own. Especially when scientists left because they felt science was becoming political.

A recent article in the journal, Science, points how how flawed the computer generated projections likely are, and more insidiously, how ad hoc they may be.

But the group of three atmospheric scientists–Charlson; Stephen Schwartz of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York; and Henning Rodhe of Stockholm University, Sweden–says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match “conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality,” says Schwartz.

To prove theirpoint, the commentary authors note the range of the simulated warmings, that is, the width of the purple band. The range is only half as large as they would expect it to be, they say, considering the large range of uncertainty in the factors driving climate change in the simulations. Greenhouse-gas changes are well known, they note, but not so the counteracting cooling of pollutant hazes, called aerosols. Aerosols cool the planet by reflecting away sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds. Somehow, the three researchers say, modelers failed to draw on all the uncertainty inherent in aerosols so that the 20th-century simulations look more certain than they should.

Just as flawed are the new Live Earth concerts. A bunch of musicians are going to travel the world releasing tons of CO2 putting on a concert to tell everyone to stop releasing CO2. This is not much different, except on a larger scale, to David Suzuki’s recent tour across Canada in a gas guzzling tour bus used simply for his own comfort. We’re all going to pay to see it, releasing even more CO2. This series of concerts could themselves release more CO2 than many third world nations.

(Genesis on Stage. What would Suzuki and Ontario Hydro say about all those bulbs?)

This planet has ranged from friggin hot to not over milennia. Moreover there is a lot we don’t know.

Update:

Another CTV poll gone horribly wrong, as in not the way they wanted it to go. Usually they leave their polls up so that about 10000 people can vote, but they stopped this one quickly.